pinakidion.*

Some other things of note. Again, this is so I can understand my own notes later.

• Mt. Vernon, Indiana, one of three Mt. Vernon’s I passed at high speed (Virginia, Iowa)
• Rebel Yell in Paducah, Ky.
• Why my son loves country music
• Can’t make it to Knoxville. We made it to Knoxville.
• Blue Ridge Parkway.
• How to tell a good story over time
• Receptacle of Memories discussion
• Brother Bear meets a real chicken and egg situation
• Black Market Dairy and the cravings of the modern toddler
• Having Dirt does not equal sharing Dirt with a spouse
• Chick-Fil-A at last (and for the only time) in Burlington
• Raleigh is not how I remember
• This is home.
• The ocean is overrated, how about less sand and wind?
• Where is my family?
• Eeek a mouse.
• One Black Sheep meets the Other Black Sheep in the family.
• What do you mean we have to go back a different way?
• Easter at Sunrise, Easter with Dad.
• Brother Bear steals the hearts of many, including another set of parents of a deaf child.
• Too much food.
• There are good thing in Washington DC, really. No, really.
• Gallaudet University trip.
• Welcome to W. Va, Pennsylvania, W. Va, Ohio. What?
• Finally, the family has come back to arrived in Columbus.
• Snow? Iowa?
• Will it play in Peoria? Yes.
• Old Republican Women and why they like Obama.
• Nut in Frostburg, Md that thinks the British are coming.
• Why I really hate fast food (with two exceptions)
• Is this really home?
• Honey, we forget something on the counter…

There’s more, but that’s enough for now. Gotta run, my Saturday writing time is up.

I’m not going to go day by day. However, there’s a couple of other things I have to write down now before I forget. I’m been holding on to them for 2.5 weeks.

Post-Discipleship Renaissance
I read an article by Jeff Bridges about his own belief until a few years ago. He believed that he needed the gospel until he became a Christian, then needed discipleship from that point until death. This made him rather miserable and made his Christian walk an endless chore. He resolved it in part by recognizing that he needed the gospel his entire life. The rest, you can read for yourself. (Insert Link) I struggle to find out what it means for me in my own life as I have a much better idea of what I see as damaging than what I see as helpful. I see a three year structured program for new believers as helpful. I see the goal of teaching people to take their own spirituality seriously as good. I see the idea that each believer as the only one responsible for their walk with God as a good one. Still, what that looks like in a general sense is hard for me to imagine. I know what it looks like for me, but not so much for others.

I’m surrounded by many that believe that ICoC-style discipleship is the biblical ideal. I say ICoC style, but it’s really a light version stripped of any authority. As I continue to say, our form of discipleship comes from the Ft. Lauderdale Five that launched the Shepherding Movement. From those five, it spread into the Navigators, Campus Crusade (through Bill Bright), Churches of Christ (including Crossroads), and others. The sixties in Florida must have been really something. All of these connections start with these five men that decided to be spiritual minders to each other. Four of the five have denounced these teachings.

So what was discipleship like in the US in the 40s? That preceded the so-called biblical model of having a spiritual big brother, so I was interested in what was there. So far, the search have provided a model that has two of the three primary characteristics I espouse in discipleship. (Insert Link) Those two are structure and temporary duration. The third, voluntary participation didn’t seem to be there and it seems this program led to church problems.

(fragment) It seems that post-2003, discipleship can be determined in a few ways:

1. Do what we always did.
2. Be nicer about what we always did by removing some level or all authority.
3. Do nothing.
4. Make discipleship a team sport.
5. Do something different.

I’ve seen all these optionsdone , but I will say that option 5 seems to scare people the most. I wish it didn’t.

More on that later, just had to write it down.

The next two are personally related, though they deal with ICoC issues. The first, I’ll just leave as is. The second, though is more important to me. Unity is still a big interest of mine, though I feel as if I have become more liberal that F. Lagard Smith in that regard. I could say that I’m sorta like Campbell who considered a Calvinist his brother in Christ(insert link).

Reap the Whirlwind
Not two weeks old, but troublesome. RD Baker has been pushed out of Phoenix. I won’t say more about it because I am not there. John Augustine might want to remove the good review written by RD. I’m sure that certain folks in Phoenix wish that Google could be ‘cleansed’. Oh well.

Who Is My Brother?
Chicago is doing a big thing on fellowship and inter-denomination dating. I hope this is an extension of reaching out to COC’s in the area. Naperville reached out to them back in 2003 and their minister even presented a paper at Douglas Jacoby’s ITS conference. I met Rich and he is a great guy.

However, I will say that from the UPC, all that can be said is that we can fellowship with those that believe in believer’s baptism, an inerrant Bible, unmistakable repentance (a quote), and discipleship that has some sort of challenge to a Christian (amongst other things) and you cannot believe in what is called hyper-autonomy. You can date someone outside the ICoC as long as they pretty much believe what the ICoC (Cooperative Churches) espouse in the UPC.

Any deviation from this and Chicago, the unofficial HQ of the ICoC (Cooperative Churches), will be invalidating its own documented beliefs. I know that it was designed to address churches within the historical ICoC, but any real meaningful cooperative efforts with non-ICoC congregations must be similar to the measures described in the Regional Partnership section (sans delegates), otherwise it is just lip service.

See, if you want a denomination, you have to go through the procedural channels to change to core document. After all, as stated in the clarifying documentation, you have to believe all of it in order to sign. If April 12 provides a different message, they will not be following their own rules. Granted, I’ll be delighted if they say something different, but the means do not justify the ends. Either go through proper channels and change the UPC or get rid of it altogether. The authors were the ones that put in the all-or-nothing provision in the first place.

(fragment)Who Is My Brother is the wrong question. Jesus clearly stated who is my brother. Whom can I marry is also the wrong question. The question is, are these two people ready for marriage. I felt prepared for my marriage because of the preparation given to us by an older couple that has been through everything at least twice. We also had the help of Family Dynamics. Despite a short courtship, we laid a foundation that has served us through all kinds of trials and major disagreements. This may not help everyone, but a rash marriage is unwise even if the two people has exactly identical beliefs.

Trying to front-load the question ahead of time by writing off entire denominations is similar to what the Pharisees did. In order to build a protective hedge, they would write off all kinds of things that were perfectly fine (Such as healing on the Sabbath) and prohibiting things that were actually good (Corban substitution trick).

As always, more on that later. Again, I will celebrate in the streets if the message on April 12 is different from the UPC. I hope that cooperation will begin with other churches in the area, RM or not.

More on the trip coming up later this week.

That would be:

Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio. We also visited Washington, DC. To be fair, the time in Kansas was all at 70 mph for 20 minutes. We stopped in all the other states, either to sleep, eat, or stretch.

What prompted this modern odyssey across the Eastern half of the country? I wanted to see home for the first time in about two years. If you remember, it was about a little over two years ago that the great Chick-Fil-A run began. At that time, we were getting rid of the Cadillac Catera that no one wants. Just to let you know, my father sold it in February of this year.

My wife was very supportive, especially as I wanted to spend time teaching our children about my side of their heritage. So, after two days of furious activity, we washed everything we own and threw it into suitcases the day we left. Mrtool housesat for us, he saw the interrupted state we left the house in.

Prior to this, some meticulous planning had been done to research every rest area between here and NC. I knew where we could stop at any given time. I also knew where all the Chick-Fil-A’s were. A man has to have priorities in order before such a massive undertaking. My wife did her usual spatial geometry trick to get everything to fit into the car. We packed a cooler with whole milk, two quiches, luncheon meat and ice. Two Whole Foods bags had all the dry food (two boxes of cheerios, raisins, and who knows what else.) We were ready.

The caveat in all this was that we had to use the back seat for some of our stuff. This meant that if she wanted to sit in the back with the children, we would have to unpack the backseat into the passenger side front seat, not a trivial matter. Still, we felt that this was the best that could be done. I mean, we have a double stroller, six bags/suitcases of clothes, food, games, and books. For those that may not know, we own a Ford Taurus. It’s not a Cooper, but it’s not a Town and Country, either.

We planned to leave that morning, but my tax refund arrived that morning in my bank account. This meant we could pay off everyone before the trip instead of after. I then spent the next two hours paying off everyone you can think of. All the medical bills are done, finished, paid in full, never to see the light of day again. We also have met our deductible for the year, to boot. We paid off our one little credit card completely and we caught up on a couple other bills as well.

Now leaving at 2pm, I said that we had to make it to St. Louis at all costs. You’d think I’d know better than to make such statements having been a part of a church that said this since its inception. Still, I guess the training is very hard to undo. My wife had a better idea, but I didn’t listen until the next day. Lesson learned: listen to your wife. Anyway, we were off to the great frontier at 2pm, ready to meet what faced us.

It was about 3pm that Dancing Bear, our daughter, decided that the car seat was not her friend. She voiced this complaint pretty much until we made it to Bobber’s house in St. Louis at 12am. Brother Bear, our son, decided that sleeping was better than listening to his sister complain. This, of course, meant that he was wide awake in St. Louis. We made a complete tour of all the rest areas in Missouri on our route in vain attempts to appease Dancing Bear. She was happy at every stop until we put her back into the seat. As a result of day one of our trip, I have decided that I will never ever complain again if there is a crying baby in a restaurant or plane.

The cooler was in the trunk, but thankfully we had to stop every thirty-forty minutes anyway. Most of the good stuff was eaten by the time we arrived at Bobber’s. One of the games I brought cannot be played in the car and my wife and I traded complaints of tiredness.

This was the worst day of the entire trip.

Arriving at Bobber’s, he met me in the driveway and helped me unload the car. We were given the basement. My wife needed to pump immediately, so Bobber and I got everything in while she setup. Both the children decided that the basement was the most fun place in history. My son was bouncing off the walls.

Bobber and I talked for two hours about all kinds of things. ICoC a little, politics, the trip, the kids, etc. We had so much fun, but finally the family constitutions gave out - we had to sleep. Early next morning, I got up. Bobber’s wife talked to me about breakfast only to segue into more discussions with Bobber all through the rest of the morning. I enjoyed hearing ideas about religion and politics as well as the paleolithic diet. That particular morning, we were not following the plan as waffles were made, much to the delight of Brother Bear.

We ended up talking about Ron Paul, the role of government, equality vs equity, the Constitution, food, where are they now(ICoC edition), liturgy, Democrats, slot car race tracks, Debian, Slackware, and other things. I saw the HQ of http://kc0dxf.net and the garage sized slot car track. I had a lot of fun, but I began to say good-bye at 9:15am in order to get on the road.

My wife and his wife joked with each other as 11am approached that this good-bye could take another hour. We left at 11:20am.

I made it home okay.

More to say, but it’s late.

And the house smells funny.

If you can believe it, I managed to stay off line for 6 days. This has been good and bad for me. Good in that I have a break in my internet routine. Bad in that folks that depend on me for website stuff found out that I was not easily reached. Still, it has been a good few days.

I enjoyed my stay with Bobber. We talked about everything from Ron Paul to religion to Debian. I saw the home for his website. I saw the groove racing track. It was a great time. We started saying goodbye at 9:15am, my family left at 11:30.

I also enjoyed our stay with Scott. More on that later.

More importantly, it looks like we may need to return home another way. First stop is Raleigh to see Kurt, but then the trip is a northern odyssey. If we go too far north, we hit major snow in Chicago. If we go back the way we came, we face flooding in Kentucky. At this point, it looks like we will be traveling Raleigh to DC to Columbus, Ohio to Indianapolis to Davenport, IA to home. I want to see Scott and Bobber again, but the weather may not cooperate.

More on that later, but I’ll take a really big internet risk here. (Phone number removed despite it being a permanent fixture of the internet now.)

BALEETED!

That’s me. I need folks to reach me, so there it is. I’m ready for the prank calls. If you’re my friend and pretend to be a prank call, I will hang up on you. You’ve been warned.

Anyway, I’ll let you know as Tuesday approaches. We are leaving here that morning and making our way West (and North, then West, then kinda Southwest.)

It has been a much needed break away from the regular things in life we’ve had the past three years. No church stuff, no appointments, no surgeries, no nothing. Just the ocean, a lot of wind, much family, and good seafood.

I had hoped that being here would also spark a spiritual renewal, but outside of the release of tension, that hasn’t happened yet. I feel strange addressing a church on Easter Sunday, but I remember that Jesus came to call the sinners, not the saints. I’m only there to introduce my children for whom this little church has prayed continuously for over two years. Whereas before they saw only pictures, Sunday, they see them face to face. Heaven is like that, too, but that’s a different topic altogether.

I do hope to see Doug and Ryan on the trip back. All I ask is to show me where a Chick-Fil-A is located.

I plan on writing much more in two weeks.

I’ll probably write from home, but we’ll be leaving in a couple hours. Thanks to everyone for the help and hospitality.

• Bobber, I’ll call you later today. Haven’t talked to my wife about it yet.
• RH, thanks for the help, I have contact with Knoxville.
• Scott, I’ll call you tomorrow from the road.
• Kurt, I’ll call you, too, but I need you to call me because I’ve lost your number. Everyone I just mentioned has my cell.

Next stop, Iowa for a brief trip down I-29.

Not that I don’t like emailing my friends, but I cannot send private email from work. I cannot use my work email because it is all stored and sifted for legal reasons. Thus, here is my projected itinerary for the trip East:

March 14th: Leave Omaha and arrive in St. Louis
March 15th: Leave St. Louis and arrive in Knoxville
March 16th: Leave Knoxville and arrive in Winston-Salem
March 17th: Leave WS and arrive home.

Part of the trip on the 15th will be a picture of the arch. Part of the 16th trip will be a visit to the Whitnet Holocaust Memorial (maybe). Part of the 17th trip will be to find Cherry-Lemon Sundrop (available only in four counties in NC and one in TN).

On the way back, we will reverse the course starting on March 25th.

To anyone helping us out with places to stay, my wife doesn’t eat seafood or pork. I will eat anything but anchovies.

I am very grateful to those that have offered to help, it is a great help to us trying to visit friends and family. Much love from the wife and me.

Yes, it’s almost time. The Pink clan is driving east to my ancestral homeland. I’ll post the route later, because it is different from the route of the famous Chick-Fil-A run. I’m going through Tennessee. It adds all of 20 miles and I avoid the wasteland known as southern Indiana and Southern Illinois. Plus, I’ll take another detour to see the Holocaust Memorial featured in the movie, Paperclips.

Yes, I am driving thought St. Louis and down I-40. We leave here on March 14 and will be traveling for a little over 3 days. Night one should put us in St. Louis, Night two in Knoxville. Night three Winston-salem or Raleigh or home. Depends.

I have mapped out all the Chick-Fil-A’s again. I will not be revisiting the Charleston, WV location with me and mrtool’s picture. however, thanks to wireless, I will be ordering from the car en route for a pick up. Bwa ha ha ha. Technology is great.

For the record, I am basically better. I got my yearly physical yesterday and everything seems normal (except being overweight). blood pressure is actually the low end of normal. Maybe I’m more mellow than I think. I’m down 14 pounds from Jan 1, so I am feeling a bit better.

Anywho, I’ll write from home, but won’t be around here until next week. My Statis-Pro football league has its draft this Saturday.